Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/121

It is a strange thing that every generation has to learn its lessons by experience. Even a slight study of the career of the Dey of Algiers would have saved two classes of modern theorists a great deal of brain fag and needless expensive experiments. To the believer in the doctrines of the divine right of plunder and the joys of running amuck, the learned Moslem would have taught that the most efficient vocal accompaniment is by no means nasty language, bluff, bluster, and threats. On the contrary, these have a way of arousing and multiplying enemies beyond endurance. The proper way is to be polite—and to speak in tones so excessively soft and reasonable, not to say flattering, that only the basest sceptic can doubt their beneficence.

The other class of theorists would have ceased to exist upon such a study. These are the ever-increasing lovers of humanity who carry the principles of fair play and justice to the conclusion that, if let alone, "all men" will respond in kind, and who believe in conse-